


how cruel (is the golden rule)

by y9gurt (rydellon)



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Dream SMP Spoilers, Gen, Mourning, Past Character Death, Post March 1st, Rated for Character Death, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29793504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rydellon/pseuds/y9gurt
Summary: “When someone leaves your life, those exits are not made equal. Some are beautiful and poetic and satisfying. Others are abrupt and unfair. But most are just unremarkable, unintentional, clumsy.”or, the news of Tommy's death reaches Technoblade about a week after it happens.
Relationships: Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 458
Collections: Completed stories I've read





	how cruel (is the golden rule)

**Author's Note:**

> this is clumsy as fuck and i'm about to go to sleep but i needed to get it out i think. title from golden by fall out boy. summary quote from taz

When the news reached Technoblade's ears, it had already been days since it happened.

It was Ranboo who eventually told him, what had been a casual conversation between the neighbors quickly turning into Ranboo running back to his house to calm down, the teenager close to tears, and Technoblade himself just standing shocked in the snow surrounding his humble abode.

_("Any news from...your parts recently?" Techno had asked, waving his hands dismissively._

_Ranboo had paused on his trek back from the nether portal, and had tilted his head in confusion, "Uh, besides the funeral, no. Nothing uh...nothing new." A watery chuckle._

_"What, a close friend?" Techno had joked, and Ranboo's face had scrunched up immediately as the hybrid tried to not burst into tears. Techno fought the urge to step closer to him, to give him some sort of physical affection...the kid sure looked like he needed it, but even if Ranboo hadn't so much as stepped out of line during the time he'd been living in the arctic, Techno still wasn't sure he wanted to jump down that rabbit hole again. He would just stand there awkwardly and...wait._

_"Hah, yeah," the kid's voice is watery, "Tommy. Uh, Tommy died about a week ago. It's his funeral."_

_The kid rushes off and Techno is left there to process what he's just been told. He doesn't register the small 'ow's coming from Ranboo, or even the fact that he somehow drags himself back to his own house.)_

He comes back to himself on one of the two plush armchairs he has sitting by the fireplace in the corner of his cottage. Phil always teased him for having two in the first place, but it's not like Techno could be impolite to guests who stop by and make them pull up one of the kitchen chairs.

He tries hard to not think about the last occupant of that chair. Phil himself prefers a kitchen chair because the feeling of the plush pressing up against his wings makes him uncomfortable, but Tommy had had no such problem, sitting curved and twisted in the plush chair in positions that Techno couldn't possibly even start to believe were comfortable.

He'd always preferred the one on the right as well, pulling one of Techno's old war books off of the shelf and complaining about how boring it was while still reading it all the way through.

Funeral, huh.

Techno wasn't really sure what to do with this information. 

The last (kind of) funeral he'd been to was his own-

_("I've named him friend!" Ghostbur was peering up at him, a wide smile on his face and a blue sheep on a lead that was wrapped three times around his hand, keeping the sheep close to his side. Technoblade remembers him holding an apple. A small innocent detail in a greater, horrible memory._

_"That's fantastic, Ghostbur, that's fantastic. I'm about to die, Ghostbur" Techno says back, hand reaching behind him to grasp at the totem he has stashed under his cape._

_"Ok, fuck it, fuck it. No no no, I'm pulling this fucking lever." Quackity shouts, and Techno feels his fingers slip off the smooth surface of the totem as the sound of a block sliding out from under a lever sounds above him, and the whistle of a heavy object falling at fast speeds comes from above him. He looks up._

_"Big Q pull the lever! Pull the lever Big Q!" Tubbo shouts, a bit too late, as Techno can already see the anvil fast approaching._

_Techno grasps the totem in a tight grip, pulling it out to clutch it to his chest as soon as the splitting pain of getting hit in the head with an anvil registers, and he feels the restorative energy flowing into his body just as fast as the life is flowing out of it._

_When he finishes his long and rather un-necessarily arduous journey home he's greeted with a loud, obnoxious "What's going on up there? Sounds like someone's having a bad day?" and the voice grates into his brain. Hindsight being 20/20, he thinks that he'd kill to never hear that voice again. He's half-right.)_

-and it had gone rather poorly for every single individual involved.

He wasn't surprised he hadn't been invited to this one. He wasn't surprised that he hadn't even been considered on the _list_ of people who would want to go to _TommyInnit's_ funeral.

And yet.

_("Look at me, do not shoot. Do not shoot."_

_"Tommy. You had your chance Tommy."_

_"You didn't have to do this! You could've-The thing about the discs-"_

_"I don't care about the discs Tommy, I was up front with you from the start! The government has to go!")_

Techno finds himself staring into the mesmerizing licks and waves of the fire. Tommy, when sitting on the vacant chair next to him, had always avoided it, like the fire had personally offended him in some way. Technoblade was honestly surprised that he had never found Tommy frowning at it and calling it a bitch. 

He had never asked why Tommy didn't like the fire, and Tommy had never told him. That just wasn't the type of relationship they had.

_("Aha....heyyyyy man!"_

_"Hey...what are you doing breaking through my walls? Going through my chests? What is this?_

_It's quiet._

_"Hey man! Hey Technoblade.")_

And yet Technoblade found himself snapping back to reality as something warm and wet rolled down his cheek.

He wasn't... _upset_ , per say. The kid didn't mean anything to him, definitely. He was just...the loss of life is always something to cry over.

Spending time with someone isn't conducive to how Techno attaches himself to people-he's not the stupid little ring fighter that Phil had met all those years ago, getting attached to the first person who gives him a hug and a home up north-but mutual misunderstanding breaks bonds that one doesn't know they've ever created, and absence makes the heart grow fonder, although that idiot definitely doesn't apply to Techno in any way.

The fabric of his shirt is unnaturally scratchy against his face, Techno finds.

Techno spends the next hour wrapping himself in a warm blanket of lies and rubbing tears off his face before they even exit his eyes. The next day, when Phil comes to visit and Techno tells him the news, nothing can be found out of place, except for maybe Techno's far-off stare. Phil gives him a soft, knowing smile all the same.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/y9gurt)


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